Vulnerability of Dairy-Based Livelihoods to Climate Variability and Change:A Study of Western Ghats Region in Wayanad, Kerala

Abstract

The study assesses the livelihood vulnerability of dairy farmers to climate variability and change (CVC) in Wayanad district of the Western Ghats region in Kerala. For this purpose, a Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) was developed underlying the definition of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change consisting of 28 indicators and 7 LVI components. A fussel framework was used for conceptualizing the vulnerable situation. Participatory rural appraisal and personal interviews were used to collect household data of 180 dairy farmers of three taluks complemented by thirty years of gridded weather data. The normalized data were then combined into three indices, i.e. sensitivity, exposure and adaptive capacity, which were then averaged with weights given using principal component analysis, to obtain the overall index. LVI indicated that the dairy farmers of all the taluks of Wayanad are vulnerable to CVC with Pulpally taluka being the most vulnerable with 48.33% farmers under the high level vulnerability category with wide variation in LVI components across the taluks. For the sustenance of dairy farming of small and marginal farmers of the region and for mitigating risks, policies are required for incentivizing the livelihood infrastructure and promotion of grass root level innovations.

Mapping adaptive capacity of tribal dairy farmers to climate variability and change: A study of western Himalayan region

“…In terms of overall adaptive capacity Una was significantly differ from Sirmaur (p=.000). Similar results were found by Radhakrishnan et al (2017). Figure 3 clearly revealed that among selected village, Naurangabad village (0.70±0.03) of Sirmaur District were having lowest score among the entire sampled region followed by Dhaulakuan (0.98±0.05), Ogali (1.04±0.06), and Khairi (1.10±0.04) because these region have low level of human, physical financial, social and natural capital as clearly revealed from the Table 3 also.…”

“…Figure 3 clearly revealed that among selected village, Naurangabad village (0.70±0.03) of Sirmaur District were having lowest score among the entire sampled region followed by Dhaulakuan (0.98±0.05), Ogali (1.04±0.06), and Khairi (1.10±0.04) because these region have low level of human, physical financial, social and natural capital as clearly revealed from the Table 3 also. Similar results were found by Radhakrishnan et al (2017). Thus these villages, are vulnerable to climate change, have a great need of improvement over existing situations through increase in level of education, development of public infrastructure, reduction of human-wild life conflict, proper management of forest and natural resources, training for human resource development, creation of income generation activities and job opportunities etc.…”

Approximate climate analysis for assessing the suitability of Indian climate zones for hydroponic fodder applications

“…Not only has this provided succor to debt-ridden, impoverished farmers in the form of an alternative source of income, but it has also increased their resilience against extreme climatic events. Radhakrishnan and Gupta [6] found that despite disruptive weather events that had affected the milk-market chain and other physical infrastructure facilities in Wayanad, innovative practices like hydroponic fodder had increased the adaptive capacity of the region. This study also used livelihood diversification, i.e., the process of building a diverse portfolio of economic activities to improve the standard of living, as one of the components of the Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) constructed on the definition of 'vulnerability' furnished by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).…”